Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/259

 ii s. xii. SEPT. 25, i9i5.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

251

THE SPLIT INFINITIVE (11 S. xii. 198). An instance of the split infinitive, earlier than 1814, is in Byron's ' Childe Harold,' Canto II. xxv. :

To slowly trace the forest's changing scene. This canto was finished in March, 1810.

W. BRIDGES.

This construction is very much older than your correspondents seem to be aware. The late Fitzedward Hall, in his paper on the subject in The American Journal of Philology (afterwards reprinted with addi- tions as a pamphlet), traces it back for cen- turies. Unfortunately, I have mislaid my copy, and cannot give particulars. But see under To, IV. 20, in the ' N.E.D.,' where instances are cited from the fourteenth century downwards. C. C. B.

QUEEN ELIZABETH'S FIFTH PARLIAMENT (11 S. xii. 159, 207). The dates of the successive prorogations of this Parliament, as given in the Journals of the House of Lords and by Sir Symonds D'Ewes, show that it could not have been dissolved in 1585. These dates are : 29 March, 20 May, 7 and 21 June, 11 Oct., 1585; 10 Feb., 26 April, 1586.

The reason of there being no index to the Journals of the House of Commons for the latter part of Elizabeth's reign is sufficiently explained by the following MS. note, which has been inserted in the British Museum copy of the printed Journals :

"The Journals of the House between 1580 and 1603 were unfortunately lost. Sir S. D'Ewes, who had access to them before their loss, speaks fre- quently of the great negligence of Fulk Onslow, Clerk to the House from 1572 to 1586 and later, though his kinsman Wm. Onslow was allowed to act as his deputy in that year. Sir Symonds D'Ewes used the original Journal, afterwards lost, very largely in his book on the Parliaments of Queen Elizabeth ; it is the best authority for the missing

years.

F. W. READ.

TUBULAR BELLS IN CHURCH STEEPLES (11 S.xi. 250, 307, 408, 460; xii. 205). The Church Review of 1892 contains advertise- ments of Harrington's tubular bells, and, if I remember aright, lists of many churches in which they had been previously used.

J. C. W.

ATLANTIS AND LEMURIA (11 S. xii. 86, 145, 168). There are many references to the literature of " the myth of the island Atlantis " in the article ' Atlantis ' in Pauly's ' Real-Encyclopadie,' second edition (Stutt- gart, Metzler, 1896).

LAURENTIA BRIDGES.

Ipra Opulenta : the Earlier History of Ypres. By Col. Sir Reginald Hardy, Bart. (Harrison & Sons.)

THIS little brochure is worth having. The author has brought together in it rather pell-mell and without setting, but in a lively enough way

? retty well all the data we have for the history of pres up to the end of the fourteenth century. It is a history full, as every one knows, of the turbulent energy of mediaeval Flanders as picturesque as wealth and adventure, battle and siege, pageants, misfortunes, struggles with kings and rulers, and eager creative activity in the arts could make it.

The last incident recorded here is the siege of Ypres strange to think of by the English, fighting under Henry Despencer, Bishop of Norwich, on behalf of Pope Urban VI., against the anti-Pope Clement, to whom France adhered. It was a terrible siege enough, as Froissart recounts it the blockade so thorough that scarce a dog could run out ; the besieged manning the wall with even the old and the wounded, and hurling Greek fire, with its deadly stench, upon the enemy. Despencer withdrew on hearing that the French were coming.

The most celebrated of all the buildings of Ypres attests, however, relations with England better and of longer standing than those signified by the siege. Even in the tenth century, besides the military connexion betw;een Flanders and England, the commercial relation originating in nay, virtually consisting of- the wool trade was begun. Sir Reginald Hardy gives two chapters to the connexion with England, placing between them the principal chapter of the work, which gives an account of Ypres " Wipers " as it was called by every one, he tells us, in Maryborough's time at the height of her opulence and fame. The supply of English wool was the principal' factor in that opulence, and when England began,, not only to grow the wool, but likewise to make the cloth, Ypres was among the Flemish cities whose prosperity was sorely touched. By 1382, then, the date of the siege, she had already passed her zenith as a commercial city.

As a fortified place Ypres first makes an appearance fortified by Count Baldwin in 902 ; and its military importance may be said to have been less subject to chance and change than its commercial standing. The nucleus round which the town collected was an island fort in a tributary of the Yser the Yperl^e from which it increased to being " Hypra Flandriarum ci vitas munitissima," destined to see much fighting in the years which stretch beyond our author's limit to the present day. Sir Reginald Hardy gives a most interesting chapter on ' Art and Literature,' of which we must nevertheless say what is also true of the rest of the book, that it would have been still better if the material had been arranged with more care and somewhat less abruptly presented.

We have not come across any work about Ypres which, in a small compass, gives the data for these early centuries with anything like the fullness we have here, and we gladly conclude our notice by repeating the sentence we started with '* This little brochure is worth having."